“Go Left… Go Left”

“Progressive” environmentalist / ecofeminist Pat Waak won a narrow victory over incumbent Chris Gates to become the new chair of the Colorado Democratic Party on Saturday, and things are looking up. It appears the lesson Colorado Democrats learned from their statewide electoral victory was simply: “Go left.”

The party’s substantial body of left-leaning grassroots activists gave Waak the needed support to outballot Gates, 187-184. Reports indicate they were angered at the way US Senate candidate Mike Miles was treated during the primary. Maybe somebody should tell them that if Miles had won the nomination, we’d all be saying “Senator Pete Coors” right now. But nah, don’t ruin their fun.

Miles wasn’t the only grassroots-friendly progressive Democrat candidate in Colorado held back by the party establishment. Waak herself lost the 2002 primary to Stan Matsunaka in the 4th Congressional District battle against now Representative Marilyn Musgrave.

Taking a look at an excerpt of the new party chair’s condensed biography written by a close admirer, we see that Waak is an ideological treasure for the Republicans:

Pat returned to the United States with a mission: To devote her life to assuring women worldwide safe and effective reproductive health care and family planning options. Pat immediately became involved in population issues and was on numerous federal committees dealing with women’s health. She was even a U.S. delegate to the United Nations Conference on Population and Development.

But there’s more from her admiring protege:

Pat Waak is not only a dedicated and strong advocate for women’s rights and the health of the planet, she also is a caring and helpful friend. As a spiritual person, she helps people use nature as a healing mechanism. She shares her own personal relationship with Earth with everyone she meets. Her faith and encouragement has helped me, as well as many others use their voice for environmental protection and women’s equality.

The thought of ousting the man behind the engineering of Democrats’ startling 2004 successes has already made some of their party faithful a bit queasy (read here and here), though clearly not all of them are dismayed. And the crowd over at the Daily Kos is ecstatic, too.

Comments

WooHoo! Did you hear that the first thing she did is change the locks on their headquarters? Her opponent called her “paranoid.” 187-185 sounds like a divide and conquer opportunity to me . . . We need the amazing DeGrow campaign team back in action, I’ve seen it’s effectiveness first hand.

Keep telling yourself that. That’s the kind of “See No Problems” attitude that turned, and will continue to turn Colorado Blue. We appreciate your support.

And don’t mistake my concern with throwing out a winner as a lack of faith in Pat Waak. I don’t know enough, as a amatuer sideline observer of the Colorado Democratic Party, about Pat Waak to make any judgement beyond the observation that I’m a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” kind of guy. I’ve already chipped in my own “New Chair” donation. Feel free to do the same!

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On Pat Waak
To paraphrase a comment I made over at Mount Virtus (and which may never see the light of day, since their comments appear to be moderated): Don’t mistake my comments below on Pat Waak as a lack of confidence in